On the Devil's Backbone
by peodbears
Summary: She's teeth and tongue and aching and he's the closest thing to a normal life somebody who has lost everything has and not even all the hours spent in church can stop her from drowning in his arms.


01.

He doesn't touch her until she's of age and even then he reminds himself that she's everything his father had told him he'll never have and taunted him with. She shines in ways Richie doubts the sun can, moves her body in waves and he's about to take a leap of faith, sink himself in her and let her hair become the noose rangers all across the country are willing to give an arm to be the one to put around his neck.

They're not really talking anymore, not really. All Kate sees is blood and all he sees is her and Seth sees nothing but the betrayal of his brother. He's not over it, not that Richie has expected him to be, but it would've been a lot more comforting to know he could sleep without a knife under his seat.

02.

Wherever she looks there's dust, desert for miles and miles on end, a cemetery of sorts for the bodies littering the floors of that filthy stripping club they've left behind. And blood. There's blood on her tongue, on her hands, in her heart, profane organ still trying to drown itself in the crippling fear of not belonging anywhere.

She wonders more often than she'd like if any of the brothers would panic if she just opened the door of the car and jumped, if they would flip the car and crash with her and burn with her and choke on the realization that there's no good, no god, no family out there for them, nothing but dust and blood and carnage.

Kate never does find the answer, never jumps out of their moving car or speak about the demons still haunting her, still after Richie, still making Seth be wary of his own blood and flesh.

03.

They kiss on the steps of a smelly bar at the side of the road, worlds away from the horrors they've seen. Richie moves in a calculated way, patient, understanding and she's all teeth, sorrow and pain, clutching at his bloodied shirt he couldn't bother changing, not when they are leaving bodies behind with each stop. His hands are on her waist, keeping her in place and away from running from him, from slipping into the insanity banging purposefully at the door of her being and for a split of a second, Kate thinks all of that is behind them now.

But then, her fingers tangle into his sliced back hair, messing it, trying to bring him closer, while her lips venture further and further down the column of his neck until she's biting and drawing blood and he hisses, hisses like a snake, like all of the things she wants to forget and she knows, _knows_ that she'll never truly be far enough from them to deny their existence.

04.

Seth hands her a bottle of warm beer, apologizing for not having been able to procure a cold one for her before disappearing god knows where to do god knows what to the poor bastard who ended up being at the wrong place at the wrong time when they were in pursuit for some information about the sister cult of the one they burned down from within. She's taking big gulps out of it, so not like how a good god-loving girl would, head thrown back as she becomes more and more inebriated with each second passing by and she barely registers the way the hood of the car slightly bends under the weight of another sitting by her.

Kate doesn't have to turn her head to her right to know who has decided to join her little pity-party, doesn't have to open her eyes or nod her head to acknowledge him to know it's Richie. She knows it's him by the way he's still fumbling with one of the knives he kept from that night, still not over the habit of playing with that particular one. Knows it's him because he never lets her out of his sight, never able to get over his desire to possess her.

And maybe it's because she's been drinking that she allows him to hide his face in the crook of her neck and whisper things into her skin, things she wouldn't believe even for a second had there been different circumstances, but screw it, screw it, she tells herself; she's lost her chance at having a normal life and if he's the only chance she's got at feeling alive, and in love and whole, then so be it.

05.

Kate ignores the blood Richie uses to paint her skin with, or the fact that if it hadn't been for him and for his brother she wouldn't be in this poor excuse of a motel in the first place, forgets that the bible warned her of boys with killer smiles, quick fingers and a penchant for trouble, turns a blind eye to all that and see if Richie, wounded Richie, lost, troubled, confused Richie who finds home in her the way she does in him.

And Seth, in return, ignores the alarm bells going off in his head and the impulse to turn the car around and tell them that this will end in nothing but despair and pain and that he's not sure any of them are strong enough, healed enough to go through that again and come out even remotely alive again.

But it works. It does. Or they will make it work.


End file.
